


Consequence Management

by BoxOnTheNile



Series: Klecksography [1]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Unhealthy Relationships, character tags to be updated, endgame jacoffel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2019-10-01 18:22:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17249150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoxOnTheNile/pseuds/BoxOnTheNile
Summary: Consequence management (noun): disaster response focused on alleviating damage, loss, hardship, or sufferingDaniel was never very good at it, when it came to relationships.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I did my usual thing of making everything harder for myself than it needs to be and decided I needed a soulmate au with its own convoluted rules. Most of them are explained through worldbuilding, i think, and I'll link to the doc in the end notes.
> 
> Ringing in the new year with a new project in a new fandom, I'm a mess.

Daniel was born with both his soulmarks. They wrapped around either ankle, rich green and brilliant scarlet, Restraints from the very beginning. 

He didn't remember a time he didn't know what that meant- that they would control him somehow, that they would influence his choices and his will and he couldn't stop it- and he chafed under it.

He hated it so much that the names didn't form until he was seventeen. _**_**WARREN. DOUGLAS.**_**_

That was the first time he got blackout drunk.

Years later, he met his first soulmate in a bar. The man slid into the barstool next to him, and Daniel's eyes were drawn immediately to the patchy pink up his forearm. The man held his arm up with a grin.

"Soulmark," he said. "Name never came in, and I know a rejection when I get one." He held out a hand. "I'm Warren Kepler." 

The red Mark on Daniel's ankle went warm.

He almost told Kepler to go fuck himself, but hesitated. There had to be a reason for this. He wouldn't just approach him without a reason, and Kepler didn't have his name. "What do you want?"

Kepler bought him a drink he didn't want, asked him questions he hated answering, and left without telling him what he wanted.

He called the number on the fucking business card anyway.

 

* * *

 

Over the next year, Daniel learned how much dirty work technology giants actually had. He probably should have cared more, but he never really had been a good person.

He also met Alana, who, bright-eyed and grinning, showed him his name in soft, burn-scar pink on her collarbone. He swore immediately to keep her safe, the only one of his soulmates that wasn’t holding him down.

Kepler approached him in the Goddard training gym when he found out, the inkblot patch on his arm displayed. “Where's my name?” he asked.

“Nowhere,” Daniel snapped, unwrapping his hands after beating down a sandbag.

Kepler grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the wall. It _hurt,_ and Daniel's heart pounded. “Where is my Mark, Jacobi? Why didn't you want me?”

Daniel wrapped his fist in Kepler's shirt and kissed him, angry and violent. “You're a fucking Restraint, and I hate you,” he hissed. Something unidentifiable flickered in Kepler’s eyes, but then his hands pressed Daniel's hips back against the wall. 

This was a bad idea.

Daniel shoved Kepler back and grabbed his arm. He felt Kepler tense, ready to throw him to the floor, until he saw the supply closet Daniel was dragging him towards. 

The door clicked shut behind them.

 

* * *

 

It didn't change anything. They were still SI-5, still commander and subordinate. 

Kepler's Mark was still klecksographic. 

He never _said_ anything, really, but Daniel and Alana knew it was a point of frustration. Daniel was still rejecting him as a soulmate, and he still didn't know where his name was on Daniel. 

“It's all bullshit superstition anyway,” Daniel told Alana one day, alcohol buzzed, head in her lap. “The placement doesn't actually mean anything.”

“Maybe,” she said. They were watching a movie in a hotel room on some assignment, and the collar of her nightclothes was loose enough Daniel could see his name on her skin. The collarbone. Unconditional affection, some would say it means. “Even if it did, the Marks make mistakes. You don't have my name.”

He was _glad_ he didn't have her name, honestly. It meant he would have shunned her immediately, and he loved her too much to even consider it.

“Why couldn't my life be easier and I be romantically attracted to girls, too?” he asked her. She laughed, throwing her head back, red hair parting to show the spade tattooed behind her ear.

“Because can you imagine? The two of us? We would kill each other or be completely unstoppable. The universe couldn't take that chance. Had to make sure it could never happen.”

“Jokes on the universe, now we're even more unstoppable.” He watched her watch the movie for several minutes. “My ankle. It's a Restraint.”

She looked at him. “Oh, _Daniel._ ”

“Don’t,” he said in response to the pity in her voice. “He can’t do shit if I don’t let him. Neither of them can.”

“Two?”

He wasn’t surprised at her shock. One Restraint was uncommon—most relationships weren’t defined by a life-changing choice—but two was nearly unheard of. He twisted awkwardly to pull off his right sock. _**WARREN**_ , bold and blood red, wrapped around his ankle as it always had.

“The rock you stand upon,” Alana muttered, and Daniel snorted.

“Superstition,” he said, bitter, and yanked his sock back on. Alana waited until his head was back on her leg to lean over and kiss his forehead.

“I know it’s only been a few months, but I think at least mine is right,” she told him gently. “I love you.”

“Love you,” he murmured. 

They fell asleep with Daniel’s head still in her lap and Alana leaning back against the couch.

 

* * *

 

Warren changed tactics in figuring out where his mark; went from allowing Daniel half-clothed trysts in dark corners to actually trying to get him in his bed. It was _tempting,_ too, but Daniel has a feeling if he let Warren see, if he proved once and for all that they were Marked to each other, that level of control he was afraid of would settle in.

Colonel Kepler was already his boss. Warren didn’t need to be an overbearing partner.

Besides, Daniel didn’t need a partner. He had Alana, whom he loved dearly, and that was more than enough.

“Mister, um, Mister Jacobi?”

Daniel looked up from his workbench. His team was between missions at the moment, and he was using the time to see how creative he could get with an explosive’s wiring before it was just ostentatious. There was a man about his age fidgeting next to him, two young women at the door giving him encouraging thumbs up. “Daniel. I’m only ‘Mister Jacobi’ on assignment and if I was on assignment I wouldn’t be here.”

The other man smiled shyly. “Alright, Daniel. I’m Aaron Klein. I, uh, I saw you and Major Kepler sparring the other day and I was wondering if you could teach me how to do that?”

Daniel looked between Klein’s eager, hopeful expression and the women backing him up and came to a realization. “I don’t mop the floor with someone on the first date, especially not with pretty boys like you. Buy me a drink first and I’ll think about it.”

Delight bloomed across Aaron’s face. “Tonight, maybe?”

“I could clear my schedule for a few hours I suppose.” Daniel toyed with one of the wires on the tabletop. “But only if you’re buying. And don’t expect me to put out on the first date, Mister Klein.”

“Of course not,” he replied, matching Daniel’s teasing tone. “Six? I’ll even take you to dinner first.”

Daniel pulled out the pen he had tucked behind his ear and scrawled his address and phone number on Aaron’s hand. “Six.”

“It’s a date.”

Alana came shrieking into the workroom less than an hour later. “You got a date!” She dropped into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Is he cute? I didn’t recognize the name but I think he’s part of my division, one of the newbies.”

“He's cute,” Daniel confirmed. “I think this could be good.”

“Just don’t get distracted.” Kepler leaned against the door frame, arms crossed. “We can’t afford distractions.”

Daniel couldn’t read his expression, but he could sense the simmering fury through his Mark. This was the first time he’d sensed anything from either of his soulmates. “Of course, sir,” he said. “No distractions.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the info for this specific soulmate au can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-SLJyQtLbQWJguRwSKCvlegV1-oHMEifyHivN8D9qbs/edit?usp=sharing).
> 
> Have a specific question or just want to talk? I'm boxonthenile on tumblr and @nile_speaks on twitter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops got distracted but im back

Klein was incredible. 

His back was blooming with color, half a dozen names scattered across the dip of his spine. Daniel’s wasn’t one of them, and it was relieving, somehow, to know this man had no hold over him at all. 

Six names was a lot, though, most people topping out at three or four. Klein was the perfect person for it, though. He was _good_ , better than Daniel could ever hope to be. He could be trusted with six people.

“I’ve only met four so far,” he murmured sleepily one night as Daniel traced one of the Marks. _Camille._ “One was a childhood friend; I knew Emmy was one of my soulmates before her name even Sharpened. Two I met in college—Blaise, the orange one? He was actually my first boyfriend. Camille is in my department.” He looked over his shoulder, smiling at Daniel in the dim light. “What about you? Or is that too personal? I know some people don’t like talking about them.”

“I don’t,” Daniel said, but for once it isn’t angry or sharp. “Not usually.” He took his hand from Klein’s back and tucked in close. “I have two,” he admitted after a long pause. “Major Kepler’s rejected Mark is from me.”

Klein was quiet for a moment. “Not big on Fate?” he finally asked.

“You're not upset?”

“What would I have to be upset about?” Klein turned in his arms and kissed him gently. “You don't want a soulmate. Just because I don't understand doesn't mean I can't respect it.”

Daniel flipped them so Klein was under him. “That was the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Klein laughed, and then neither of them said anything of consequence for a while.

After, when the two of them are sweaty and sated and tangled together, Klein traced shapes–letters?–over Daniel's heart. “I think I want you to myself a little longer,” he admitted. “Maybe someday I'll be willing to share, if you want something with the Major, but right now–”

“You don't have to share shit with Kepler, let alone me,” Daniel interrupted. “I rejected him, Aaron.”

“Capital-R rejected, yeah. But the whole building knows you were sleeping with him. It's why it took me so long to ask you out.”

“It didn't mean anything,” Daniel insisted. “I, I don't love him or anything.”

“Okay,” Klein said, immediately accepting his words, and for some reason that pissed him off. “I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry.”

 _I'm sorry_.

“I… thank you. For apologizing.” He paused. “And it's okay.”

Klein smiled up at him and went back to tracing on his chest. Letters, definitely, but… He wasn't spelling out _Aaron_.

He was writing _Daniel_.

“What are you writing?” 

“Your name,” Klein said. “You should always love yourself, I think.”

“If any name was there, it would be Alana's,” Daniel said. Klein hummed, smoothed a hand over the line of Daniel's collar, and traced Alana's name.

“There. Now you have a name you don't hate.”

“Go the fuck to sleep, Aaron.”

 

* * *

 

Daniel had never had someone that still wanted him there in the morning before Klein, and it was still too soft, sometimes, to see him shuffling around his kitchen as the morning sun cast her light across the tile. He let Klein take the stove and began spooning grounds into the coffee machine. It was horribly domestic and comfortable.

Daniel’s phone chirped on the counter, a soundbyte from Mass Effect, and Daniel was almost immediately more alert as he lunged for it.

 _“I’m three minutes from Klein’s apartment,”_ Alana had texted, and Daniel frowned. 

“But we don’t work today,” he muttered, typing a reply. Klein made a questioning sound as he dug through his fridge for… something. “Alana said she’s on her way, but there’s no reason for her to be.”

“She knows you’re here, right?”

“She’s Doctor Alana Maxwell, of course she does.” He dropped his phone back on the counter and went to fill the coffee pot with water. “I’m just warning you that she’s coming at this point.”

“I’ll make another omelet,” he said, finally emerging with eggs and an armful of vegetables. “Cheese?” Daniel hummed in affirmation.

The front door opened a moment later. “Picked the lock!” Alana called, already crossing to grab Daniel by his shoulders. “Dan, Dan, Daniel.”

“Alana,” he said, a grin stealing over his face. He loved her and her enthusiasm and her almost manic energy. “Did you sleep at all in the past forty-eight hours?” 

“Maybe. Can’t remember. Not important. Look!” She shoved her wrist under his nose, and he went cross-eyed. There was a blur of neon green. Daniel grabbed her arm and moved it to a more tolerable distance.

“Hera,” he read. “Holy shit. Holy shit you have another Mark.”

“Daniel. _It was never klecksographic_.”

“That’s impossible,” Klein said. Alana turned to him, bouncing on her toes. “Marks don’t Sharpen until a person gains a sense of their identity. The earliest they ever Sharpen is four or five.”

“That’s because the human brain needs time to develop,” Alana told Klein.

“So what, your soulmate is an alien?” Daniel teased, but she shook her head, hair flying. 

“My soulmate is an _artificial intelligence_. Do you know what this means, Dan? For AI research? For _my_ research? For _humanity_?”

“It… changes… everything?” Daniel was trying to wrap his head around the concept of Alana having another soulmate at all. She was _his_ , the only one he actually _wanted_ , this _Hera_ couldn’t have her—

“ _Everything,_ ” Alana said breathlessly. “We’ve made AI advanced enough, _person_ enough to have souls. To have soul _mates_.” She gently pulled her hand free of Daniel’s grasp and stared down at the Mark. “I can’t wait to meet her.”

“The world just changed in my kitchen,” Klein said reverently. “Doctor Maxwell, I know you’re probably riding a whole lot of adrenaline right now, but how about I feed you and then Dan takes you and puts you to bed. I get the feeling you’re gonna need to make a lot of calls about this.”

Alana blinked at him, then looked Daniel in the eye. “I like this one. Keep him.”

Daniel shoved her. The coffee pot beeped, and he had to actually pick her up and carry her from the room to keep her from searching for a mug. He dumped her onto the couch. “I’ll make you hot chocolate; Aaron has cinnamon sticks to put in.”

“Aaron,” she said, smiling. “That’s good. I’m happy for you.”

“Kepler isn’t,” he said quietly, glancing over to make sure Klein hadn’t heard. “Every time I bring him up, he gets so angry. It’s… _cold_ , and I can feel it.” He shook his head. “Not important right now. Today is about you.”

Alana’s smile turned sad. “Go talk to your boyfriend. I owe him a meal, now, hope he doesn’t mind takeout.”

“No one should ever let you cook,” he said, heading back to the kitchen. Klein was chopping vegetables and grinned at him.

“This is exciting,” he told Daniel, and then lowered his voice, “but you don’t seem excited.”

“This is not the morning to talk about my feelings,” Daniel said softly. He snagged one of Klein’s saucepans to set on the stove.

“It’s always the right time to talk about when you’re upset,” Klein countered, handing over his milk. Daniel shook his head and filled the pan with water; milk was not Alana’s friend “What’s wrong, what was going through your head?”

“I’m gonna lose her,” he admitted. “I’m gonna lose her and I don’t know if I’ll survive that.”

“You’re not going to lose her,” Klein rebuffed. “She loves you. You’re her _heart_ , Daniel Jacobi, and Fate herself decided the universe needed to know that. And she’s yours.”

Daniel didn’t have an answer to that, so he finished what he was doing in silence. Klein let him be, and Daniel didn’t know if he hated that or not; Klein was so _good_ , and Daniel didn’t deserve good or soft, but he was selfish enough to take it.

Alana was snoring quietly on the couch when he came out. He set the mug on the coffee table next to her and whispered, “Please don’t leave me behind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love dying and being dead (:


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm doing camp nano and conman here is my project. also my gf HappyLeech is in my room and not a thousand miles away and im screaming

Cutter sent Daniel to Moscow.

Technically, Cutter sent Major Kepler’s team to Moscow because he didn’t like the look of some technology a rival company was setting up. The plan was Alana would pull blueprints from their servers while Daniel blew the place sky-fucking-high. A standard operation for them, basically. 

Except some point in the past… while, maybe, Daniel had been _anxious._ Daniel didn’t do _anxiety._ Manic overthinking, blatant disregard of his own heath, a brief stint of trying to drown himself in a bottle ~~that he still hadn’t completely shaken~~ , but not anxiety. 

Klein pulled him into a hug before he left, meeting him on the tarmac outside Goddard’s Canaveral headquarters. “I know you can’t tell me exactly what you do,” he said into Daniel’s chest, “but please be careful. I don’t like that you can’t text me while you’re gone.”

Guilt twisted in Daniel’s chest. If Klein knew the blood on his hands… “I promise to be as safe as I can. You know what I'm good at, Aaron.”

Klein ran a hand over the burn scars swathed over Daniel’s upper arm. “I do. Still. Come home in one piece?”

“I assure you,” came Kepler’s slow drawl behind them, “I will make sure Mister Jacobi returns alive, Officer Klein. And with at least most his limbs attached.”

Klein took a step back from Daniel and saluted. “Of course, Major.” Kepler watched him emotionlessly for a moment, then swept past. Klein sighed heavily and leaned into Daniel’s side. “Every time he looks at me, I feel the urge to update my will.”

“Not the worst instinct to have,” Daniel told him. “But he’s right. Even if he’s not happy with me lately, he’s a professional. I trust him with my life.”

“Then I’ll trust him, too.” Klein kissed him quickly. “Good luck, see you next week.”

“Good luck with that meeting tomorrow, whatever it is.” 

“Daniel!” Alana shouted. “Plane! Now!”

“Go, go!” Klein pushed him, giggling. “I love you!”

Daniel didn’t process what he said until he was in the air. _I love you_ , so easy, no strings attached. They weren’t even soulmates.

And Daniel was starting to think he might love him, too.

 

* * *

 

The new things Daniel was feeling wasn’t enough to drown out the strange nervousness that clung to him, traces of it on every thought like gunpowder ground into his skin. It seeped into his bones, fear and dejection and _what had he gotten himself into_.

He didn’t notice his leg was bouncing until Kepler put a hand on his thigh and pressed it down into the seat. “Jacobi,” he said, eyes bright and sharp and focused, “remember what I said about distractions?”

“He’s not a distraction,” Jacobi said, voice low. “I don’t… I don’t know what this is, it feels like it’s not even _mine_ , but—” He cut off as it hit him. “It’s not mine. It’s—fucking Christ, these fucking Marks ruin everything!”

The corners of Kepler’s eyes tightened, and a flare of anger flickered in Daniel's gut; once more, not his. “You have more than one?”

“I don't want him, either,” Daniel said, dropping his head in his hands. “He needs to get his shit together before this becomes a problem.”

“Until then, you need to stay focused,” Kepler told him sharply. 

Daniel's immediate, indignant anger swept away the anxiety. He kept his mouth shut, though, fumingly silent until he flipped the final switch on his detonator and the explosion that destroyed the rival tech lab came dangerously close to them, close enough that Alana stumbled from the shockwave. He and Kepler shared furious looks, and, three months ago, they would have fucked half-clothed in the jet’s tiny bathroom while biting painful bruises. Now, though, Daniel just glared, daring Kepler to say something.

He didn’t.

The mission was a resounding success, of course. The three of them were professionals, and they worked together flawlessly, even when they wanted to kill each other.

Daniel turned his personal cell back on the moment they touched down in Canaveral. There were two new texts from Klein.

_‘hey, can you come to my place when youre back?’_  
_‘doesn’t matter how late it is’_

He offered to drive Alana back to her apartment, but she waved him off, already inching back towards her lab to start crack the encryption on the stolen data. He didn’t say anything to Kepler, still pissed, and went home.

Home. When did he start considering Klein’s apartment home?

Aaron was still awake when Daniel slipped quietly through the door, sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter with a box of frosted cornflakes, eating the cereal dry. “Hi,” he said. He sounded tired.

“You’re eating cereal out of the box at three in the morning,” Daniel said by way of reply. “What happened, what went wrong? What happened at the meeting?”

“They wanted me to join the _Hermes_ research crew.”

Daniel took a second to remember what the _Hermes_ was. “That’s the deep-space research station, right? The one way out there? The one you were training to do computer maintenance and communications on?”

“That’s the one.”

“That’s great, Aaron!”

“I told them no.”

“ _Why?_ ” The _Hermes_ had been all Klein wanted for months, Daniel knew that. He’d been so excited the first few weeks they'd been together, rambling for hours about pulse beacons and the station’s mother program. He'd wanted this so _badly_.

“Because this could be something,” Klein said. “We could be something. And I want to see what happens.” He smiled, holding the cereal box to his chest. “There'll be other missions I can apply for. I might not get another chance at you.”

Daniel stared, open mouthed and overwhelmed, at the human _disaster_ , eating dry cereal at three a.m. in his pajamas, as though he hadn't turned down a once in a lifetime opportunity just to see if the two of them _worked._ The man who'd said _I_ _love_ _you_ so casually, even though they weren't Marked for each other.

Daniel crossed the kitchen in a few long strides, pressing against the counter to kiss Klein. Klein laughed into the kiss, leaning down. The angle was awkward and the counter corner hurt but he didn't know how else to deal with these emotions building in his chest. 

His phone buzzed in his back pocket. “Oh goddamnit, Alana,” Daniel cursed, yanking it out. Aaron laughed again, carefully sliding off the counter to put the cereal away.

_'something good happen? ive never felt anything this happy from you’_

Daniel snorted. _'tell u everything later’_

“Hey.” Klein grabbed his hand, pulling him back towards the bedroom. “C'mon. You're home, let's go to bed.”

Daniel dropped his phone on the counter and went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops i really love klein


End file.
